


You Know What They Say When You Assume Things

by everybodygotawaterbuffalo



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Don't copy to another site, Don't worry, Gen, Light Angst, Self-Indulgent, also most of the team are kind of idiots, but no one else knows that, materials science and engineering, nursey isn't an english major, nursey still loves english and writing, only for like 5 minutes, that's nursey's major
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-10-24 07:15:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17699984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everybodygotawaterbuffalo/pseuds/everybodygotawaterbuffalo
Summary: You make an ASS out of U and ME. In which Nursey is an English major … right?





	1. Freshman Year

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Thursday, y'all!!  
> Some notes:  
> MatSE stands for Materials Science and Engineering and is pronounced “matt-sea.” It’s a really cool branch of engineering. It’s somewhat similar to Chemical a lot of the time but focuses more on the properties of the materials rather than the components. Feel free to comment any questions you have about it and I can answer them or ask my sister if I don’t know!  
> This is incredibly self-indulgent since my sister is a MatSE major and no one ever knows what that is and I just wanna talk about my fave Check, Please! character with the same major as my sister, ok?

Nursey isn’t exactly sure how it started, ok? He doesn’t know when the whole team just decided he was an English major, but apparently they all think that now and at this point, it’d be too much work to correct them so he’s leaving it alone. 

 

Week 2, Freshman Year

Everyone’s meeting in the Haus for something. Nursey’s not sure what, since they already had practice this morning, but Bitty sent something in the group chat about berry cobbler and fresh lemonade so he’s not about to pass this up. 

Having just gotten out of his last class of the day, his Lit & Comp elective, Nursey’s got  _ A Midsummer Night’s Dream _ with him and not much else, since he dropped all his major-related stuff off at his dorm before that class. It’s just not worth it to lug 2 science books and a math book halfway across campus. He’s got the time to spare between Calc 3 and Lit & Comp anyway; he might as well. 

So Nursey arrives at the Haus, ready to partake in berry cobbler and whatever team bonding Bitty has planned. 

As expected, the berry cobbler is fantastic. Bitty had apparently been trying something new with the crust, or so Nursey overhears at one point in the conversation. He isn’t paying all that much attention though, as he’s a bit preoccupied with annotating Act 2. The team bonding is apparently Cards Against Humanity, but after a couple rounds Nursey ducked out, explaining he wants to get some work done. Hockey players playing Cards is funnier to watch than to play in, in all honesty, so it’s not like he’s missing out all that much. 

Jack leans over, startling Nursey. They haven’t talked much, mostly because they just don’t cross paths outside of practice and team activities. 

“Ooh, that’s a good one,” he comments, and Nursey smiles. It’s good to know there’s another intellectual on the team. 

“Yeah, it is! I’m reading it for my Lit and Comp class,” he replies. “You’ve read it?”

“Yup. Took a couple historical lit classes for gen eds.” 

“Neat.” Jack gives Nursey a couple of historical fiction books to add to his ever-growing list of “Books I’ll Read Eventually, I Promise” before they drift back to Shakespeare.

At this point, Shitty enters the conversation, thus unintentionally dragging the whole team into it. He’s not exactly quiet. Honestly, having known him for a couple years, Nursey’s not entirely sure Shitty understands the concept of volume control. 

“Shakespeare! Half his writings don’t even pass the Bechdel test but most of them are really good reflections of what it was like to live in that time. He was sexist, but so was the rest of society.” 

The team ends up in a long-winded discussion about the Bechdel test and sexism in literature over the ages and it’s surprisingly mature and in-depth. Nursey and Shitty get into a good conversation about whether  _ Othello _ passes the Bechdel test that Nursey might have taken notes on and will definitely be using later this year when they read  _ Othello _ . Bitty also has some really good input, especially about the inherent class system and how that relates to the sexism Shakespeare portrays. 

Nursey leaves the Haus that day with a restored faith in the intelligence of jocks (except for LAX bros) and a new appreciation for Jack Zimmerman. 

 

Week 6, Freshman Year

Most of the team is at the Haus on a Wednesday evening, mostly just hanging out, but there’s been a fairly steady rotation through the roof. Nursey brought along his laptop to work on either an essay due soon in Lit & Comp or a lab report for O-Chem. They’re literally the only two assignments he has right now that he could possibly work on in an environment like the Haus. As much as he loves Calc, Physics 2, and Intro to MatSE, most of their homework requires his full attention span. Essays and lab reports, on the other hand, he could practically write in his sleep. 

He’s got  _ Their Eyes Were Watching God _ out on the end table next to him for textual evidence and is paging through it aimlessly, waiting for inspiration, when Dex plops down next to him. 

“What’s that?” he asks, and Nursey snorts a little

“It’s a book, ever heard of it?” Dex glares at him, but it’s not as sharp as real anger.

“I meant what book is it? And is it good?” It seems to be genuine interest and Nursey’s a little surprised, but he’s not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He explains the premise of the book and what he thinks about it so far, (it’s a really good book and you should all go read it) and Dex seems to enjoy the conversation and Nursey even catches him making a note of the title and author on his phone later. 

Eventually, however, Dex gets pulled away to talk to Bitty about something that’s broken in some corner of the Haus and Nursey’s left alone again. He gets about half a page down about the cultural importance of porch gossip before Ollie (or is it Wicks?) sits next to him. They sit silently for a couple of minutes before Ollie speaks up. 

“Is that really the kind of book you want to be reading? Books like that aren’t really fitting for hockey players, you know.”

Before Nursey can react, Shitty has stood up from his seat halfway across the room and is dragging Ollie off into the kitchen, already lecturing him. Nursey sits there for a moment, just trying to process what the hell Ollie could’ve meant by “books like that.” He’s also a little stunned by how quickly Shitty reacted and shut down the situation. At Andover, he’d gotten similar comments and they always received, if not laughter and agreement, at least silence from everyone else before he bit the bullet and spoke up. 

Dex comes out of the kitchen pretty quick after Shitty and Ollie go in, and sits back down next to Nursey. 

“So … you really like English, huh?”

“As a language? Hell no, it’s a dumpster fire. I like the classes and the books though.”

“That … that actually makes a lot of sense. Sorry about Ollie.” 

“Dude, it’s not your fault. Also, he’s doing pre-med,” Nursey starts, then lowers his voice as the chatter picks up around them again. He doesn’t want Ransom to hear him bashing his major. “Fucking pre-med guys and their superiority complexes.”

Whatever Dex was about to respond with is cut off as Shitty re-enters the living room. Nursey senses a declaration coming, and he’s right. 

“Derek Nurse, we as the Samwell Men’s Hockey Team will support your interests wholeheartedly, as long as they aren’t dickish or breaking the bylaws. Yes?” He then gestures around the room and everyone shows agreement in one way or another, mostly nodding or saying “yup.” 

Conversations resume pretty normally after that, and Nursey goes home without thinking much it. He knows Shitty’s flair for dramatics, after all. 

 

Week 19, Freshman Year

Some things Nursey has learned recently: Dex and Chowder are incredibly unobservant, he got way more credits from AP classes than he realized, and everyone on the hockey team seems to have just decided that he’s an English major. He doesn’t take issue with any of these, as none of them affect his ability to do his work, but they’re odd.

First, Dex and Chowder are both CompSci majors, which means they have most of their classes in the Engineering building and surrounding quad. They don’t seem to notice that Nursey walks with them to and from most of their classes, even though the English building is halfway across campus and most classes start at half hour intervals. If he were an English major, it would make no sense for him to walk with them. Nursey has decided to take it as a compliment that they don’t say anything, because if they didn’t want to walk with him they’d have thought about it more. 

Second, Nursey has absolutely no classes with any of the freshman on the hockey team. He doesn’t have any classes with the upperclassmen either, other than one in his Lit & Comp class, but they don’t talk much. Nursey can’t even remember his name half the time. Of course, hockey players don’t have a particular reputation for being outstanding in the academic field, but he didn’t really comprehend how many classes he basically skipped from AP credits until he thought about it recently. Dex and Chow are both in Calc 2, he’s in Calc 3; he qualified out of freshman Physics and Chem; he’s even ahead in his history gen-ed requirements. And yeah, before you ask, he is ahead in his Literature and English gen-ed requirements as well, but he’s starting to consider a minor in English anyway since he likes the classes a lot and already has a bunch of credits towards it. What would he even do with an English major, though? He supposes it could help with technical writing jobs or if he ever wanted to dabble in technical publications but he’ll have to talk to his moms about whether it’s worth the effort or if he should just stick to MatSE. 

Third, Nursey’s become the resident literature expert and official book recommender for the team. He can’t even count the number of times he’s looked over someone’s essay in return for a load of laundry or a six-pack. It’s not a big deal; essays don’t take that long to fix (even really bad ones take only half an hour or so) and if he’s getting free laundry out if it he’s not gonna complain. Unfortunately, there are downsides too. Holster made a joke about English being the easiest major the other day and directed it at Nursey and he just … didn’t know how to respond. He’s in MatSE, which isn’t exactly a light load, especially with the aforementioned being-ahead-and-in-harder-classes thing. So Nursey just says, “Chill” and laughs a little and they all move on. 

 

Week 38, Freshman Year

It’s finals week and Nursey wants to die. Well, only a little bit. He’s drowning in assignments and studying but he loves his major. It’s mostly the fact that all his classes have finals within a 36 hour timeframe, whereas most of the other people he’s talked to have at least a 48-72 hour block to work with. It’ll be fine. He’ll survive, and then he can go home for a couple months before summer training kicks back in. 

He’s also realizing that STEM majors are kind of assholes about every other kind of major. Most of his studying time has been with Dex and Chowder, mostly for the sake of convenience, and because they don’t look at his notes while he’s studying. Remember the whole thing about them being unobservant? Yeah, that applies here too. The only thing they might look up at is a calculator and Nursey usually uses the calculator on his computer anyway. 

A lot of Nursey’s non-hockey friends are English majors and they’re all stressed out of their minds about book reports and essays and poem analyses and creative projects and honestly, anyone who thinks any major’s final week isn’t stressful is an idiot. Even art majors! Those kids are making so many projects Nursey doesn’t know how they have any ideas left. One of his roommate’s best friends, Laura, is doing graphic design and he talked to her for about an hour a week or so ago about her major and his major and the prejudices some majors have against others. She assured him that the art kids think engineering majors are try-hards just as much as the engineering kids think art majors are lazy. Then her girlfriend Maria, a journalism major, came home and they got distracted talking about Laura’s most recent project and how Maria wants to use her art in the magazine she’s making for her senior project and forget Nursey exists for a hot second. Nursey leaves soon after that, not wanting to intrude on their evening. The point is, everyone thinks their major is the best, which is fine, but they put everyone else’s down and that’s where Nursey takes issue. 

Dex and Chowder have been annoying for about the past month; whenever Nursey mentions being stressed or worried they respond with snorts of derision. It’s probably a little bit his own fault for having built up this “chill” persona but it’s clear they don’t think he’s doing as much work as them. On a subconscious level, they don’t think he’s doing work that’s as important as them. Nursey isn’t even sure whether revealing his true major would help here, because although it might get them to respect that he’s going through the same struggle as them, they still wouldn’t recognize non-STEM majors as the same amount of work. 

Honestly, it’s still disrespectful even though he isn’t really a liberal arts major. He sees how much they do and knows how much shit a lot of them put up with at home. A majority of his non-hockey friends are English or liberal arts majors and they do just as much work as the engineering students. Yeah, projects are stressful and lab reports are long and tedious, but he’s not reading 3 books in a week and writing an essay a day. Econ has nothing on English Lit, not to mention the added stress for those going into education, Holster. 

Nursey goes home for the summer knowing that STEM and pre-med kids are assholes, but honestly, he knew that already. 

 


	2. Sophomore Year

The thing is, Nursey doesn’t really mind it. Even coming back sophomore year, the mistaken major really doesn’t bug him. If the team wasn’t supportive it’d probably be a different story but as it is, he can’t be bothered to correct anyone at this point. 

 

Week 4, Sophomore Year

The thing is, Nursey likes where he sits with the team right now. He likes being someone the team can come to, even if it means occasionally sacrificing homework time they don’t know about. He loves the team and it’s work it to be able to support them like that. He doesn’t mind if Bitty asks him for help first, partially because it means he gets both taste-testing and more advice than one person can absorb. And honestly, he’s seen how they treat Ransom, and even Dex and Chowder, like precious and fragile objects around exam season. He doesn’t need that. To make a long story short, if the team knew he did STEM they’d know he’s busy and he doesn’t need them time-managing for him. He can handle it himself, thanks. 

It’s a little scary how easily Nursey adapts to this. He makes a personal rule to never outright lie about his major, but in all honesty he’s never been asked a question he had to lie about. One of the things he loves about this team is that they’re affectionate and emotionally supportive, but don’t ask for a lot of information. There are exceptions of course, like Tango, but on the whole, they aren’t particularly nosy people. It’s nice in general, but especially in this situation. 

One fall afternoon Nursey’s sitting at the table in the Haus kitchen, working on analyzing a bunch of Robert Frost poems between helping Bitty with his pastries. Tango bubbles, for lack of a better description, into the room. It’s clear he’s having a good day. Nursey may only be a year older than him but Tango’s just so freaking cute sometimes. He reminds Nursey of his younger cousins. 

“Ooh, what are you guys doing in here?”

“I’m working on a couple kinds of pastries and Nursey’s working on … what  _ are _ you working on, hun?” Even in the first couple weeks of the semester, Tango’s calmed down enough to pause and listen for answers between questions. 

“I’m doing some poem analysis. Robert Frost. Trying to get people to see past the depression and the nature. Like, they’re huge parts of his life and his writing, don’t get me wrong, but they’re not the only stuff he ever wrote about, ya feel?”

“That sounds so cool! We read some of his stuff in AP Lit last year! Bitty, can I help with anything? I want to bake my sisters something when I go home for fall break.” One of Nursey’s favorite things about Tango is how easily he’s distracted.

“Of course, sweetheart. Why don’t you get started on …” Their conversation fades into background noise as Nursey returns to his computer. 

A couple days later, Tango comes to him with a book of Frost poems and asks for recommendations on what to read first. Just like that, all the freshman learn Nursey’s the guy to go to for book recommendations. Nursey figures some of the other upperclassmen can tell them what his major is. If they ask him specifically, well, they’d be the first to know the truth. 

Nursey quickly learns that this year’s freshman don’t question anything the rest of the team tells them. To be fair though, most of the frogs last year didn’t either. 

 

Week 9, Sophomore Year

One of the best things Nursey’s found about this whole situation is his friendship with Whiskey, and by extension Tango. Whiskey’s a digital art major and he worried a lot about what the team would think of his major. Of course, there’s the stereotype that kids in sports don’t tend to have particularly difficult majors, but a pretty high percent of SMH are in STEM-related majors and even business kids have been known to look down on arts majors. And don’t get him wrong -- Lardo’s amazing and her art is inspiring to everyone, and Whiskey does talk to her a lot, but it’s different when there’s someone on the team to talk to. 

That’s honestly part of the reason he didn’t bother correcting anyone before or right after summer break. Being someone for the liberal arts freshman to come to, especially next year when Lardo leaves, is really important to Nursey. 

Speaking of, Nursey’s pretty sure Lardo figured it out. She might have access to their majors but he’s not sure. For that matter, Shitty definitely knows and Jack probably does. Shitty doesn’t really count though because he knew Nursey in high school and his interests haven’t changed since even  _ that _ freshman year. Jack, on the other hand, is more perceptive than he usually lets on. He’s the type to pretend to be clueless while slowly collecting information until it’s time to be useful and he divulges all of it. Nursey texts him about books a lot. They recommend each other stuff; Jack’s got a lot of free time what with roadies and all that, so he’s always open to new stuff to read. Apparently, keeping in touch with Jack was a good idea.

Recently Nursey got added to a group chat with half of the Falconers that’s just titled “Club of Books.” Tater made it. Most days, there’s some sort of conversation going on, whether it’s about books, or other random things. None of the Falconers really know who Nursey is, just that he’s an old teammate of Jack’s and that he (so far at least) has good book recommendations. 

Even though it’s only been a week or so since he got added, most of the players have gotten through at least one book, some upwards of four or five. It’s amazing how much free time these guys have, considering the amount they train. Nursey’s also inclined to consider this networking, and everyone seems to agree that this was a good idea. 

Tango also seems to have latched onto Nursey as a good upperclassman. He tends to tag along when Whiskey and Nursey meet up to talk shit about STEM kids. Tango hasn’t decided on a major yet, and his enthusiasm to learn as much as possible about everything possible is really cute and also super inspiring. Whiskey and Tango are good for each other, too. Tango helps get Whiskey involved in more team events and in return he answers Tango’s questions with infinite patience and just generally exists as a barrier between Tango and anyone saying anything mean. 

Also Nursey and Tango are Spanish buddies now and it’s a good time. Nursey gives good book recommendations in any language. 

 

Week 15, Sophomore Year

Y’know, there’s a certain type of person that hangs out in the etymology section of the library, and Nursey is now friends with all of them. There are also only a few certain areas of the library that the hockey team tends to congregate in, and the etymology section is far away from all of them. Even by its own merit, that section of the library is one of his favorites. There are big mahogany bookshelves close enough to feel cozy but not enough to feel cramped, armchairs with little rotatable desk table things attached (he didn’t even know those existed but they’re amazing) and lots of windows, each with a panel of stained glass with an animal or insect placed above. 

Nursey’s propensity for ending up in random study spaces has brought him a lot of friends he’d never have met otherwise. He hangs out with Laura and Maria fairly frequently, and has met a lot of their friends too. Of course, there are the study spaces in the engineering building, but the ones in the other buildings are so much comfier and prettier. He can only take so long in a concrete building surrounded by chrome and plastic, thanks. 

There’s also the fact that all the rest of the hockey kids in STEM majors really like the engineering building study spaces for some godforsaken reason. Half the time when he’s leaving class, he’ll pass by one or two guys from the team, but they’ve all taken to assuming he’s just picking up Dex and/or Chowder from class. To be fair, none of them know Dex or Chowder’s schedules like he does. 

Memorizing has always come easy to Nursey, so when he realized he’d accidentally memorized half of the team’s schedules, he isn’t exactly surprised. He really never expected that religiously avoiding bullies in middle and high school would be practice for evading his hockey team when working on calculus. 

Like mentioned before, this has led him to make some friends that he wouldn’t otherwise really interact with. A couple of the art students have taken to using him as a model when he’s in their building. He doesn’t mind, and often gets to sit there and study while they borrow a limb or two for sketching. His favorites (though he wouldn’t tell anyone else) are two girls named Taeyeon and Kelleigh. Kelleigh’s minoring in biology and Taeyeon’s parents both work at NASA so their conversations are always engaging, even when they’re drawing Nursey’s face and he can’t participate. Kelleigh’s boyfriend Anthony hangs with them sometimes and he’s chill too. 

One of the best parts of this arrangement is that he can have a complete mental breakdown without any fear of judgement. Don’t get him wrong -- he loves the team and they’re wonderful and supportive, but a couple of them have a tendency to make jokes at the wrong time and right now, he’s just not in the right state of mind to handle that. He has three lab reports and two essays due in the next twenty-four hours, as well as a calc test at 8am tomorrow, so he’s allowed to be panicky, ok? And the art kids get that. They’ve all had times where they’ve got four projects due and have no inspiration for any of them (he knows -- he’s asked). 

Every time Nursey meets up with the art kids, he knows he’ll go home refreshed and satisfied with what he’s gotten done. 

 

Week 23, Sophomore Year

It’s easier than Nursey thought it might be to only do his non-major homework around the team. For one thing, it’s a bit hard to focus on stuff like differential equations when you’re surrounded by approximately eight hundred hockey players, making noise with a decibel level equivalent to a rocket taking off. Also, since he has so many places and times to do his major-related homework, it’s easy to leave essays and lab reports for more convenient times. With most peoples’ schedules memorized, it’s easy to work in homework time whenever (and wherever) he needs it. 

Nursey finds it a little funny, how easily the boys push anything he’s doing into the mold of an English major. If he’s sitting at the kitchen typing furiously at a lab report, they think he’s working on an essay or creative writing or whatever they think English majors work on. If he sits there with his head in his hands for five minutes because he can’t figure out a question, they just think he’s got writer’s block. To be fair, he still isn’t doing anything to deter them from this mindset, but it’s still funny. 

One fun thing he’s discovered that freaks Dex out is his ability to type without looking at the screen or keyboard. Dex thinks he does it just to annoy him, but it allows him to keep track of where people are in the room. He’s always done that, but he’s now gotten into the habit of doing it with a much greater degree of accuracy. 

Today in Nursey’s saga of “Things That Make Dex A Little Bit Of An Idiot,” Dex hasn’t seemed to notice that a large proportion of the engineering students he talks to know Nursey. Even the ones who don’t know him personally tend to know  _ of _ him. Nursey tries to keep a low profile -- he really does -- but he can’t help the incompetence of some of the people in his classes. The only reason Nursey knows about this is that Dex brings it up when he mentions people. 

“Yeah so I was talking to Justin, y’know the EE major? He said he knew you the other day, and he was telling me about …” 

“You know Kayla, right? So she’s in my calc class and …” 

For some inexplicable reason, neither Dex nor Chowder question any of this. Maybe they’re just glad to have more friends in common, or maybe they just really are that unobservant. 

This week, unfortunately, is an inconvenient week because they have a roadie. Roadies mean that Nursey has to get all his major-related homework done before they leave, because he’s never alone when they’re travelling. Essays and lab reports, as well as anything that could look like a gen ed if someone walked in while he was working on it, are allowed to come with. This makes studying for things like DiffEq and Statics a bit difficult, but roadies aren’t super frequent so he makes it work. 

Nursey knows now that after college, he’s never doing something like this again. It’s less effort than telling them all would be at this point, but it’s still a hassle at times. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Thursday and happy Valentine's Day!!


	3. Junior Year

Nursey thought it might get easier and it has, in a way. He’s gotten used to keeping track of everyone’s schedules and his workload very closely. What he wasn’t prepared for, though, was living with Dex. That throws a huge wrench into this. If it were anyone else, he might’ve just told them, but he honestly has no idea how Dex would react and that’s a variable he just doesn’t want to mess with. Dex in general is a variable he doesn’t want to mess with. 

 

Week 16, Junior Year

To Nursey’s amazement, no one else figures it out, even with him and Dex living together junior year. Well, that’s not accounting for the people who already know. Nursey’s pretty sure Jack, Bitty, Lardo, and Shitty all know, but none of them comment on it to the rest of the team so that’s alright. And in all honesty, the general consensus is the Bitty is semi-omniscient by now. Whiskey and Tango both know, but that’s because Whiskey asked directly and he can’t keep secrets from Tango. Tango, while remaining as enthusiastic as ever, has grown a little more socially aware in the time he’s spent with Whiskey. Nursey thinks they might be dating but hasn’t bothered to ask. They’ll tell him if and when they’re comfortable. 

Speaking of comfortable, Nursey is the ultimate expert on comfortable study spaces. By now, Nursey knows what must be close to every single study space in the school and their prime times. He knows the music building is best mid-morning, the art spaces are quietest at lunchtime, and the English building is practically abandoned by mid-afternoon. Any time that Dex needs company but doesn’t know where to go, he’s got plenty of friends that don’t mind him swinging by their dorms or apartments unannounced. 

Of course, Nursey still loves the library. It’s just unfortunate that it’s halfway across campus from anywhere else he goes, since it’s in the middle of all the business buildings and he’s just never had any desire to go into any of those. He’s found it’s infinitely more convenient to stay closer to the Haus, even if he does miss the stained glass windows. Nursey does rather enjoy staying in their room in the Haus. He and Dex put up some fairy lights, posters, and other decorations so it looks quite homey now. It’s also the only place it’s socially acceptable to do homework in just boxers.

A lot of this relies on Dex’s perceptions of Nursey. Rather, it relies on Dex’s  _ mis _ perceptions of Nursey. Dex has always assumed Nursey to be a social butterfly and while that’s technically correct, Dex vastly overestimates the amount of time Nursey has to party. Other than occasional comments about how Nursey could stand to be in their room for more than just sleeping, it doesn’t seem to bother him all that much. If anything, Dex seems more worried with making sure Nursey has someone to do Nursey Patrol whenever he thinks he’s heading to another party. In all honesty, Nursey’s only ever been to one party that wasn’t a Kegster and after seeing the sheer amount of hard drugs there, he has since passed on that fine opportunity whenever it’s come up. 

Contrary to last year, this year Nursey has Dex’s schedule memorized down to 30 seconds, accounting for weather and pedestrian traffic conditions. Luckily, Dex has a couple more morning classes than Nursey does so while he thinks Nursey’s sleeping in or lazing around the Haus, he’s actually curled over his desk, doing homework for classes Dex doesn’t know about. 

 

Week 21, Junior Year

Nursey should’ve known it wouldn't last forever, especially with the increasing amount of time he, Dex, and Chowder spent together. To be fair, it also lasted way longer than he thought it would. Yeah, junior year is hell, but it really isn’t as bad as some people had made it out to be. At least he’s not trying to prep for grad school on top of all this; all he has to worry about is another internship for this summer and getting a resume up for the start of job-hunting next year. 

It’s all going perfectly well until the team has a weekend roadie right before his thermodynamics test on Monday at 8am, and don’t get back to the Haus until about 4am. Nursey arrives at the test mostly awake and exits feeling ok. Grades come back on Tuesday afternoon, and Nursey’s test has 28% written on the top in thick red marker. 

_ Twenty-eight percent. _

That’s the lowest grade Nursey’s  _ ever _ gotten on a test, not to mention one this important. Regardless of his grade, the stuff they covered in this chapter would be built on in the next several chapters, so he wants to make sure he really knows it. And looking over his test, it looks like a lot of simple mistakes, but also a scary amount of actual misunderstanding. He isn’t sure where he went wrong. Well, other than the obvious  _ not being able to study because of a roadie  _ situation. Still, he’s never had this much trouble with that before, and he felt fairly confident about this chapter before they left. 

Obviously, he isn’t in a great mood the next couple of days. He knows he’s falling into what Dex would call a “chill” mood, but he really can’t help it. As much as he hates snapping at Dex and Chowder, it’s much less emotionally draining than trying to explain why he’s feeling like shit, especially since they keep pestering him. 

“Guys, for the last time, I’ll deal with it. Just gimme a couple of days.”

“Nurse, if you just tell us what happened, maybe one of us can help.” That’s not good. When Dex calls him ‘Nurse’ instead of ‘Nursey’ he knows he’s fucked up. 

“Yeah, no.” His voice is as flat and emotionless as he can get it. 

“You said it was science, right? Well, Dex and I can probably help with that! We’ve both taken all the gen-ed sciences.” Chowder tries desperately to calm the situation down before it can escalate into any kind of fight. Nursey snorts derisively. 

“Neither of you can help with this science. I know for a fact neither of you have taken it yet.” Before either of them can protest further or start to question that statement, Nursey has returned to aggressively reading and post-it noting Atwood’s  _ Oryx and Crake _ . Thankfully, they take the hint and leave him alone. Chowder, bless his heart, brings Nursey a piece of freshly baked blueberry pie, his favorite, with some ice cream. Although neither of them bring up the situation for the rest of the week, Nursey knows they’ll bring it up eventually. 

 

Week 22, Junior Year

Despite Nursey’s reassurances that he’s fine, Dex wants to figure out what was up so he can help. While Nursey’s off at class on Wednesday, he does some snooping. He knows Chowder would get kinda touchy about this, so he figures he’ll wait until he finds something interesting to show him. A quick search of Nursey’s closet reveals only that Nursey has, in fact, been abducting Dex’s sweatshirts. There are two in his laundry pile. Dex doesn’t mind since Nursey always washes them and puts them back on his side, but the blatant denial is equally infuriating and endearing. To be fair, Dex steals Nursey’s hats fairly frequently, but that’s because he has like fifteen of them. Also he at least tells Nursey when he’s grabbing one. 

Next, Dex moves to Nursey’s half of the dresser and the little bookshelf Dex made for him for Christmas last year. His dresser reveals nothing beyond the knowledge that Nursey owns more socks than any human being has any need for. In his bookshelf, which somehow Dex hasn’t looked carefully at since he installed it, Dex finds a couple of textbooks that Nursey should have no reason to own. One for Calc 3, one for Differential Equations, both tucked between literature textbooks. He didn’t know Nursey had even taken math in college. 

“That’s odd…” he muses aloud before returning to his search. It’s out of place, but there could be another explanation -- hand-me-downs from a sibling or parent, or just something Nursey decided to pick up out of sheer curiosity. Nothing else on the bookshelf looks odd, so he moves on to the desk. He saved this for last on purpose, knowing it’d be both the most helpful and the hardest to put back together. Thankfully, he’s got about two hours still before Nursey gets back from class. 

Systematically working his way through the drawers, this is what he finds: textbooks for classes Nursey reasonably should know nothing about, several notebooks marked with English class names, and about twice as many unmarked notebooks. Dex flips through the English-marked notebooks and finds discussion and lecture notes, half-written essays, fragments of poems, and lists of assignments. In the unmarked notebooks, however, he finds lab notes, technical sketches, math problems, and lots of chemical drawings. In one of the notebooks is a list of what appear to be internships, each with notes on applications, pros and cons, and locations. A couple are circled or crossed off. 

Not really knowing how to process this, Dex calls Chowder over to show him. They’re both confused, but Chowder points out that the classes these notebooks seem to be for line up with a MatSE degree. To be honest, that doesn’t really eliminate confusion so much as redirect it. Why does Nursey have all this MatSE stuff? Is that his major? Or a double-major? Why doesn’t Nursey ever talk about any of these classes? What on Earth is going on? 

After a while of looking through the notebooks and discussing, they check the time and carefully put everything back the way Dex found it. Until they know what to do with this and until Nursey’s mood improves, there’s no sense in bringing it up. They’re idiots about social cues sometimes but they’re not  _ that _ bad. 

 

Week 24, Junior Year

An executive decision has been made that Nursey’s thermodynamics professor is the best. Last Friday, Nursey talked to her about retaking the test. He explained the whole roadie situation and his prof agreed to let him retake it. Up to this point, he’d done fantastically in the class, behaved very well, and always had everything in on time so she was understanding and more lenient than she would have normally been. She figured it wouldn’t hurt to give him the benefit of the doubt here. He got his grade back today: ninety-two percent! Although it’s a bit lower than his average, he’s not complaining. It’s a far cry from from the twenty-eight percent he tries not to think about. The moment he arrives back at the Haus, Dex and Chowder have practically attached themselves to him, demanding to know what happened and why he’s so happy suddenly. 

The following vague happy announcement to Dex and Chowder earns him hugs and, since Bitty’s in earshot, an extra-large piece of pie. As far as Nursey knows, they don’t know what class this was for. Regardless, they’re all excited that Nursey will get out of his “chill” mood and be back to normal. When Nursey’s off, it messes Dex up and that can make any kind of productive practice difficult. Now that they’re back in groove, the next two practices are some of the best they’ve ever had. During a whole hour of defence practice, they don’t let a single shot in. Obviously, Chowder gets a lot of credit, but Nursey and Dex kept approximately 97% of the shots away from him entirely. 

It takes until Thursday for Dex and Chowder to work up the nerve to approach Nursey about what they found two weeks ago. They’re all sitting in Chowder’s room, Nursey working on a couple lab reports, alternating between them every few questions, and Dex and Chowder working on a CS project that they’re both struggling with. They both go quiet for a couple moments, having some sort of rapid-fire silent conversation, before Dex speaks up.

“Hey Nurse, what’s your major?” The question is tentative but deliberate. They finally noticed no one’s ever actually asked Nursey what his major is other than maybe Tango, but it’s easy enough to sidestep a question or two when faced with a paragraph and a half of them.

“Why are you even asking, Dex?” Nursey snorts. “Don’t you know? We’ve known each other for three years.” Dex sighs, exasperated.

“Yeah, that’s kinda the point. No one’s ever actually asked you what your major is, and something tells me it’s not English.” Nursey blinks at him. 

“And what might that ‘something’ be?” he asks, going so far as to make finger quotes around “something.” Chowder, who had been watching up until now, butts in gently.

“Nursey, you’ve got an awful lot of science and engineering notebooks for an English major.” His voice is gentle, but Nursey still panics a little. He freezes, seemingly contemplating the nearest exits and their pros and cons, before relaxing and accepting his fate.

“How long have you known?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading!! I hope you enjoyed!!


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